My late mother’s rant was directed at Nevil Shute, who wrote many wonderful books but “then he wrote On The Beach, and died, and left us behind with those images.”
I rarely have a strong reaction, but when Walter Mosley appeared to send Easy to his death in Blonde Faith, I vowed to punch Mr Mosley in the face if I ever met him. (I have since mellowed, and Mr. Mosley is in no danger from me).
Yours?
Out of genteel discretion, I won’t name the name, but a well-known and much beloved author released a book which turned out to be “Book One in a Series,” without any indication of this on the front or back cover, or anywhere inside, until the very last page.
“To be continued in ‘The Burning Palace,’ Book Two of the ‘Raging Cataclysms’ series.”
I was so mad, I sawed the book in half, and mailed one part to him, and the other to his publisher. Since then, I have never bought any book of his that is part of a series, only his stand-alone volumes – and I make DAMN SURE of that before buying.
And I love the guy! I’ve met him, to chat with one-on-one. He might even remember my name! He’s one of the sweetest of sweet-hearts.
May God Damn publishers who put out series books without cover notes indicating this.
It wasn’t even that Patrick O’Brien killed me, but that it was done offstage. :mad:
When I was a 6th grader I was lapping up the “black stallion” series by Walter Farrell, good entertainment, well-written juvenile fiction featuring teenagers who bond with and race horses. Then I got to one called “The Island Stallion Races”.
This one has space aliens in it. WTF?? You couldn’t think of any better plot device to get Flame and whats-his-name off of Azul Island to race against other horses so you went with flying saucers and little green space aliens who really really wanted to watch a freaking horse race?? Seriously??
Ed McBain promised to write Exit, the “E” book in his 87th 87th Precinct series. He didn’t.
I and countless other readers will never forgive Louisa May Alcott for marrying handsome, noble Laurie to petulant, shallow Amy. I once stood at the Alcott family grave and moaned aloud, “Why, Louisa, why? You know Laurie belonged with Jo!”
I enjoy Diana Wynne Jones’ light fluffy YA fantasy novels, but there was one scene that really stuck in my craw.
The protagonist’s sister is attacked by a mob of armed soldiers, and the book doesn’t come right out and say she was raped, but her clothes get torn off and afterwards she’s weepy, vulnerable, retreating into herself and losing interest in music (her favorite thing.) The reaction of the others is “will someone please get this girl back to normal so we can get on with it?” Later they run into a powerful dragon wizard (allegedly light fluffy YA fantasy novel here) who basically hypnotizes her and says, “pretend it happened a long time ago and you’ve forgotten all about it.” and poof, she’s deus-ex-machina’d back to normal.
It was tossed in as a dramatic element and handled really badly, is what I’m getting at.
Several authors hit my buttons for starting series and then never finishing them! Jerry Pournelle, Chris Stasheff, I’m looking at you! David Gerrold gets a pass because by the time I got to the last book that he wrote I wanted everyone in the series dead. Harlan gets a pass for being Harlan (and really touchy!)
I don’t love her anymore, but I gave up on Marion Zimmer Bradley when I learned she and her husband sexually molested children (including their daughter.)
Too bad. I really liked Mists of Avalon.
Stasheff should get a break. He said on his website that no one will publish his stuff anymore as he’s out of fashion.
I love LOTR dearly, but I haven’t quite forgiven J.R.R. Tolkien for pairing Arwen with Aragorn. Shoulda been Éowyn.
Then he can self-publish. Slacker! 
I’m miffed at David Feldman, author of the Imponderables question-and-answer book series. I used to buy all his books, but no more. His publisher started issuing his old books under new titles. I was tricked into buying two volumes I already owned because I thought they were new. Now I’ll probably never buy another, even if assured that it’s 100% new.
… wow, I read ALL those books more than once as a kid and I do not remember that! Man, that business with the cave maze in The Island Stallion stuck with me, too.
I do remember being gut-punched by The Black Stallion Legend.
Granted, I was, what, like ten when I read them all? I reread the first one a few years ago and was struck at how it was clearly geared towards, say, high school kids. When I was a kid, they were read solely by horse-crazy tweens, which is probably pretty unfair to Farley.
I absolutely love Henning Mankell’s Swedish mystery series and I understand that the books are supposed to be a tad bleak and that the main character, Kurt Wallander, is an inveterate sadsack, but…
did you have to go and give him early onset Alzheimer’s Disease, fer chissakes?! If it felt wrong to let him find happiness with the love of his life, couldn’t you have at least let the poor guy retire and spend his golden years collecting beach glass, or something? 
Brandon Sanderson, for what he did to Kelsior. I still like his work and I KNOW why it had to be that way. But still.
and for gods sake, fix Shallan before I start to hate her as much as Nynaeve!!!
Eowyn would never have been happy as Aragorn’s spare wheel. She could be a much more equal partner to Faramir. Aragorn’s heroic and all, but much too used to getting his own way. Arwen didn’t care so much for power and rulership, so she’d be ok with that.
Shipping wars, SMDB edition.
Speaking of, wtf is up with Hermione/Ron??? I can see them dating in school, maybe even staying together for a while afterwards, but no way they have enough in common to sustain a long-term relationship.
One of the nicest touches of The Force Awakens to me was the portrayal of Han and Leia as people who loved each other and had a huge shared history but just didn’t work out as a couple. Ron & Hermione would have been much the same.
But back to Harry Potter - Harry and Ginny had like eight kids, and all of them were named for other people, both first and middle names? Ginny never said “I know you and Snape shared a Moment, dear, but he was creepy as hell and I much prefer ‘Harold’ as little Albus’s middle name.”?
I still want to punch Guy de Maupassant in the face.
I gave up on her before that, when she attended a local convention and acted like a total shit to several people. I witnessed this, and was totally appalled. How can anyone be so cruel-spirited?
(Also, the blithe acceptance of injustice in the opening pages of the first Darkover book horrified me. I don’t have the book on hand, but the quote was, very roughly, “It may not be right to blame an entire population for the crimes committed by a few, but it is necessary to do this and so we shall.” I’d be greatly obliged if anyone could help me find the proper quote.)